Kavanaugh's alleged victim, a California psychologist and professor, tells her story

boing
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Nah, the GOP will just double down on their support and be further motivated to get him on the bench before the mid-terms (better do it before someone else steps forward with more scandalous accusations). I mean FFS he has already demonstrably lied under oath during his hearings. I can’t imagine this swinging the pendulum any.

I’ll be truly shocked if these accusations end up torpedoing his confirmation.

I’m really hoping to be proven wrong here, though. It’s really the only hope we have at this point (well that and the Congressional balance of power shifting in the midterms which will in effect force a more centrist replacement nomination).

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It may poison it enough to warrant someone else. I mean really, is there only ONE person they have in mind for this job?

Thought part of me agrees with your pessimism. I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t prevent his approval. But if the public backlash is enough, it may not be a hill enough people want to die on.

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It’s a race against time at this point. There’s a huge Republican concern over losing the House majority and a remote chance of losing the majority in the Senate as well come November.

This is the one shot to guarantee a ultraconservative Justice on the bench and push the court hard Right for decades to come.

If this blows up it’s very likely that they won’t get another chance to do this for another two years at minimum. They know this which is why I see them holding their nose to get this guy on the bench. But who knows, maybe some vulnerable R’s will blink at the optics of voting to confirm another accused sex offender to the bench in the age of #metoo and vote Nay (unlike with Thomas). Somehow I doubt it.

Like I said, I really hope I’m proven wrong.

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Let’s not allow this to be clouded in our minds, not even a little bit:

No one’s seriously talking about Kavanaugh being “brought down.” He’s not likely to go to jail or face any kind of censure over this accusation whatsoever.

All anyone is talking about is not giving him one specific, important, lifetime-appointment job. That’s it. That’s not being “brought down” in my book.

He wasn’t on Trump’s initial short-list in 2016; it’s not like he’s had the job locked down for years. His confirmation hearings were a mess for entirely unrelated reasons. Even if we somehow hand-wave away the sexual assault, he’s a terrible candidate.

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You act as if this isn’t a hugeley important thing for millions of people.

Maybe not, but he did lie under oath and if he isn’t confirmed he risks impeachment as an appellate judge. Which would be lovely, because seriously, fuck that guy.

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Not exactly. The new senate won’t be sworn in until next January. That’s plenty of time for Kavanaugh to withdraw and confirm another, possibly even more conservative, Federalist Society judge.

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Tom Nichols is a never-Trump Republican, a professor at the Naval War College specializing in nuclear strategy and a former Jeopardy! champion. His main point is that while he doesn’t consider behavior in high school disqualifying, and worries generally about making dumb teen behavior disqualifying for public office, he also makes it clear (ETA in further Twitter posts) that he thinks Kavanaugh’s adult responses to that behavior is consequential, e.g., a history of lying about it when brought up would be disqualifying.

And as I’m sure we all know by now, Twitter is the perfect forum to express nuanced views on controversial topics.

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Trump never came up with a list at all. He has little interest in governing and no background whatsoever in Constitutional Law so he basically outsourced the job of picking SCOTUS Judges to the Federalist Society, an ultra-conservative group which has been playing a long game to control the Federal Courts for over 30 years.

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Ok, just keeping you honest on this.

“Ultraconservative” is how I would describe Scalia. Not Kavanaugh.

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From what I’ve seen he’s at least as, if not more conservative than Scalia. Not as conservative as Thomas but they can bond over their adventures in abusing women at least.

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you’re way more optimistic about the integrity of the modern republican party than i am, that’s for sure.

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It helps that if the D side stays a unified bloc, only 2 Republicans need to defect to torpedo the whole thing.

Jeff Flake’s already indicated he wants hearings on the incident, and he sits on the judiciary committee (where the R side only has an 11-10 edge.)

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“OK, so, moving on to Supreme Court picks. Who do we have who’s not a rapist, or otherwise morally compromised?”

“I got nothing. Sorry.”

“C’mon, guys, there’s gotta be someone …”

“I guess there’s Kavanaugh. No one was ever able to prove anything.”

“Yeah, but he’s at least a little bit rapey. I mean, look at the guy. He was DKE at Yale, for Christ’s sake. Yale barely even had frats back then. They had to import one just so he could join it and …”

“And?”

“And … well … rape people.”

“I think you’re overreacting. Sure, DKE had a bad reputation, but …”

“… but what? It was just youthful high spirits when they went around chanting ‘No means yes, yes means anal’? You telling me it was just coincidence that the entire frat landed on the Yale sororities’ ‘Do not Date’ list? That the president was suspended for ‘penetration without consent’, which is how they say ‘aggravated rape in the third degree’ up at Yale?”

"After Kavanaugh’s time. Anyway, it was college. Even if he – "

“-- Even if he raped someone, you were going to say?”

“Look, Jack, it’s college. You know how it is. Before all this Title IX nonsense started, boys were just allowed to be boys. And if that meant a little rape from time to time, well, no real harm was done. Why, I myself --”

“I don’t need to hear that right now. I don’t have the time for fond trips down Memory Lane. The fact is, we have a problem, and the problem is that every single candidate we can come up with is either some drooling sex fiend with a history of sexual assault that looks like page 8 of Genghis Khan’s resumé, or they’re mortgaged up to their eyeballs to the Mob. Or they’re a coke addict, a full-on goose-stepping Sieg-Heiling Nazi, or a total psycho. Or three or more of the above. Kavanaugh is our least bad option, but we have to figure out how to spin it when the inevitable happens, and some broad comes out of the woodwork to say he had his hand down her pants for half the Reagan presidency.”

“Can’t we just do the usual? Deny everything, smear the witnesses, then change the subject? It worked with the president, and he makes Kavanaugh look like a fucking choirboy. Anyway, who gives a fuck? Sure, the Dems will scream and make a fuss, but we ram it through before the midterms and it’s a done deal. Afterward, they’re stuck with him. Hell, so long as we hold onto our majority, we could nominate John Wayne Gacy and the Dems would just have to eat shit and accept it.”

" Fine. Kavanaugh it is. Tell the president we’ve got a live one. And throw the rest of the CVs back on the pile. If Breyer or Ginsburg tap out before the whole house of cards falls apart, we’ll get a chance to nominate another – assuming we can find anyone on the shortlist who doesn’t have an actual conviction for unlawful carnal knowledge of pre-pubescent Girl Scouts or corn-holing Shetland ponies on prime-time TV. Which, I have to say, is looking pretty unlikely, but I live in hope."

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56

I don’t really expect it to happen either. Which is unfortunate for the victim.

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That changes the grounds but not the fact of his unsuitability.

If one accepts Ms. Ford’s account (I do), then Kavanaugh is either amoral enough that he doesn’t understand why what he did is wrong, or unprincipled enough that he doesn’t care. Republicans like Tom Nichols want to quibble over the degree of Kavanaugh’s transgression and minimize it as a one-off mistake. Those entirely wrong-headed arguments require a tacit admission that Kavanaugh is lying about his conduct, and no-one should vote to confirm a Supreme Court justice who is comfortable lying under oath. Respect for the rule of law is kind of a prerequisite for the job.

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Why does any of this matter? They have the votes to confirm, right?

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Like I said, it is less about integrity, and more about the public backlash. They are already worried about midterms and there may be people in closer races not willing to swallow this poison pill so their opponent can’t run ads saying, “Soandso voted to confirm attempted rapist Kavenaugh to the Supreme Court.”

Though I am still pessimistic about it as well. I just think there is a chance. I am sure my original comment to the old thread sounded apathetic or like it was no big deal. It was more the cynicism of how politics work.

In fact I was thinking on the way in about @ficuswhisperer 's comment about how they are pressed for time to get this nomination voted on and hopefully pushed through. I am pretty sure this is why DF sat on this info for months. Kinda a dick move, but one could argue it is a politically smart one. Due to the time restraint they may be too far in to switch to a new candidate. Had this come out months ago, they may have had time to find a more suitable person.

I’d argue this is worse than Anita Hill. But you’re right, it is far from a sure thing. Just saying more of a shot.

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Maybe, but we’re in a more partisan time, and the republicans are in control of the senate, and they don’t give a shit about women’s rights. I mean, we already know he lied under oath, and they don’t care about that. I have no faith that the GOP will ever do the right thing, a few exceptions perhaps.

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True, but I’ll take it anyway.

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